September 22, 2012

We spent our last day in Legazpi on September 22.  Since this was our last day before we had to leave for Manila, we decided to mostly stick around the hotel and take it easy.  I had had a nasty upper respiratory tract infection brewing since almost the start of our trip, but this day I woke up feeling at my absolute worst.  I pretty much wanted to just curl up in bed and be done.  Francis, for his part, woke up in a much better mood than he went to bed in the night before.

Waking up happy and ready to go!

 Even though we had originally decided to keep Francis from using the tablet until we were on the plane, he sure had other plans.  He had gotten involved with playing the games we had installed on the tablet, and the one thing it was absolutely good for was preventing a tantrum.  On the other hand, when we took it away from him, we were pretty much guaranteed an instant tantrum.

Loving the games on the tablet.

 I was a little frustrated that I had not done enough shopping for Family Day gifts for Francis while we were in Legazpi.  Gregg and my father decided to take Francis for a few hours to play ball with him, and my mom and I took a taxi to the mall.  We heard that there was a straw market nearby.  We inquired about directions while at the mall and were directed to a jeepney.  We took the jeepney to the straw market, which turned out to be within walking distance.  Totally fine by us, though.  Taking the jeepney was a cool cultural experience we wouldn’t have had the opportunity to experience otherwise.  The straw market was a great place to purchase locally-made gifts for Francis, particularly items that were made out of volcanic ash and stone from the Mayon volcano.

Later that evening, we went to Mass at St. Gregory the Great again.  This time, we had Francis with us.  Francis fell asleep on my lap during the Mass and looked to me to carry him up the aisle during Communion.  It was a really beautiful experience.

This was in stark contrast to being back in the room, where Francis was starting to lose his cool over having to go to Manila the next day.  More tears.  More fighting.  More kicking and clawing.  Gregg and I tried to explain to him that this meant forever.  We would go to Manila and promise to be his mommy and daddy and love him forever.  We did a puppet show and made it entertaining for him.  Ultimately, one can never expect that promising all the love in the world will make the loss of everything a child has ever known any easier for them.  We had a long journey ahead of us to ease the hurt.         

To Be Continued...